“I remembered something.” Said Juliet, standing in the hall door, her mousy brown hair was just starting to grow back in. The ugly scar from the brain surgery was still visible through the spiky follicles. The Chemo might have stolen her hair but it was the surgery to remove the tumor that had left her a past-less and almost lifeless shell for the past four months.
“What do you remember, Honey?” asked her husband.
“It came back slowly at first. It might have almost been a dream,” she angled the recliner toward the couch and sat down. “It was at night. No it was afternoon but there was a terrible thunder storm. I kept starring at my reflection in this glass door watching the rain pour down outside. And I had a canvas, a painting I had done. That one actually.” She pointed above Joel’s head to a pointillism of an old wooden fence in a field of wheat.
“Then you came in the door Jerry. And you asked if I was waiting for a ride. I said ‘no, just waiting for the rain to stop so I could walk home.’ Then you said that I would have a long wait and that you were early anyway and you could give me ride if I was willing. Then I said that I shouldn’t ride with strange men and besides the rain would ruin my painting before I could make it to the car.” Juliet stopped her narrative and rubbed her temples as if trying to coax the memory back to the surface.
Her husband picked it up where she had left off. “Then I said my name is Jerry and I work in the library. And grabbed large garbage bags from the janitors closet and we wrapped the painting in then and I drove you home.”
“Yes that’s it exactly.” She stood up from her seat. And squeezed in between her son and her husband on the couch.
“You remembered the day we first met.”
“and I think I remember when Joel was born.” She reached out and wrapped her arms around her son. “And I remember that I love you so much.”
“I love you too mom.” Tears were beginning to pool in Joel’s eyes.
Her husband embraced his family with tears running down his cheeks. “It’s good to have you back honey.” He said.
“It’s good to be back. Do you still have my painting supplies? I think I’d like to start painting again.”
“It’s all right where you left it sweetheart. I am glad you’re getting your past back.”
“No not the past. My future. I got my future back.”
© This story and subsequent parts are my own original idea and are protected under United States copy right law.
C. O. Bonham 